Etch The Edges

Rosa Steele is a child of the South. She has seen what we have been and she knows what we can become. She has passion for the work of the community and likes to stay in the details of politics. She has made Loganville her home and like others she found this tranquil city slow and inviting, not too far from what was happening but not too close. However, as with so many other areas progress came to Loganville. Growth was at every corner and when she and others asked the City Council to do something about a traffic light at a busy intersection their requests fell on def ears. And so, she felt the call. Hear Rosa’s story and find out how a person who wanted to represent Loganville in all its diversity was met with the subtlety of the old south, a wall of no admittance thrust in her face with not even a smile, just an understanding that she was not allowed. Etch the edges with us and find out how she broke through that wall, and stands now ready to challenge the remnants of the old, and stand as a representative of what’s best for all of Loganville, whether they like her or not.

On this episode of Etch The Edges we have a conversation with Sophie Gibson. She hails from Jamaica to Norcross by way of New York and brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the table. And in one of the most diverse cities in one of the most diverse counties in the state of Georgia she not only embraces multiculturalism and champions diversity she is born of diversity, lives her life and made a family in diversity, and now seeks to ensure that diversity remains at the forefront of the conversation. Her objective? She wants to make sure everyone has a voice, a seat at the table. As a self-made woman, entrepreneur, business-owner, and job creator she sees what she brings to the table of opportunity as essential to providing a chair for others who would emulate her success. Listen as she shares her story. Let’s Etch The Edges.

Norcross City Councilman Matt Myers is our guest on this episode of Etch The Edges.  Who is he and why is he serving? A self-declared kid from South Carolina, who is still just a kid, though the aches and pains he says he feels tells him otherwise. He has no patience for the heated fire of partisan politics, but rather spends his energy on listening, learning, collaborating, and building together, for the good of all the people who put him in office. He is an aspiring Statesman and on this episode he takes the time to tell us what he’s about and why, for the time he is in this position, which according to his own words is only long enough as necessary to achieve objectives set before him by the will of the people. Then, he will pass the responsibility to someone else  qualified to take the reigns of the power he now holds. This is what he does, and what he will do. He serves. Listen, and hear him Etch The Edges.

Patty Durand is running for office, the office she’s seeking to attain? Georgia Public Service Commissioner. Why is she running for this position?  Because as she looks at the work the Commission is doing she sees action, or lack thereof, gone horribly wrong; cronyism and misappropriation. In this episode Patty in measured tones gives us insight, painful insight into the bureaucratic machinations of a commission that allows a company to run its nuclear power project at a hundred percent over budget with no regard for the citizens of Georgia who are paying the bill.  This really is not the way. Patty wants to lower our energy bills, ensure climate justice, reign in corporate waste at Plant Vogtle, invest in renewable energy and create green jobs. She wants to represent the people with what can only be called equity. Listen as she makes the case and etches the edges.

On this episode of Etch The Edges we have Gwinnett County Solicitor General Brian Whiteside share with us his story. Where he’s from, his journey to Gwinnett County, and how he has become a one man engine of justice and firsts, for the marginalized and disenfranchised. It’s about Justice for the people. Always forward. A proud Purdue Boilermaker who made it happen on and off the field. A career of service. A breaker of rules that do harm. A maker of rules that defend and elevate. A motivator to others to join together in a coalition of change for justice and equity. Give us a listen and together let’s Etch The Edges.

On this episode of Etch The Edges we have Gwinnett County School Board members Dr. Tarece Johnson and Vice Chair Karen Watkins. They have answered the call to represent the people in their respective districts on the School Board, responding to a cry for help from children and their parents who have been and to a degree still are marginalized. In the finest American fashion living up to the American ideal they were called, ran, and won office. This is our way. However, the response? For their service they have been attacked, bullied, antagonized. There are those who say they do all this because they are concerned parents. They do all this because they want to protect their children, and by extension the children of color as well, the undercurrent clearly translated as stay in your place, do as you’re told, the truth is what we tell you because you’re too ignorant and will turn our schools and our community into a negro dominated ghetto cesspool, and by the way Dr. King is on our side. You PEOPLE just don’t get it. Yes, this is the message of a Right turning a hard radical right with an unwillingness to even consider the other side. Well, on this episode we give these two women called to circumstance the opportunity to share their truth, share their experience, share their perspective, and hopefully humanize them. By humanizing them hopefully we will dissuade those that are hurling invective and supporting the guys who follow these two women and park outside their homes with ill intent. These outstanding women are human beings, just like all of us, and here we will give them grace, and let them speak, in the hopes that those others will etch off their rough edges and do the same. We all want to do right by our children, all our children, and we can only do that right, if we stand together on common ground. Let’s etch some edges.

Our special guest on this episode of Etch The Edges is entrepreneur and philanthropist Maceo Brown, owner of System 5 Electronics. Continuing our conversations on Black Excellence, Maceo shares his wisdom with us on what it takes to realize and fulfill what if you truly seek to find, you can achieve. It’s something I like to call Critical Success. Maceo shares with us how we can apply critical and innovative thinking, creativity, steadfastness, and just plain good ‘ole guts in battling the barriers that hold us back, that hold us down. Those American born barriers of racism and the hateful intractable, those people who live and breathe to deny all of us the American dream, and in so doing in many respects deny themselves by being un-American. He shares with us how he conducted his battle and achieved his Critical Success, realizing the best of America, that so-named Dream. And finally, he shares with us how he is looking back to pay it forward with Maceo’s Kids. It’s a powerful conversation. Give us a listen and Etch The Edges.

On this episode at the Edge we have a deep and enlightening conversation with Dan Obarski. It is always enlightening to hear about how our fellow human beings do what they must in order to survive, grow and thrive. As a man who came from pain Dan found his way, lived at the edge, worked hard and played hard, abusing himself in the process. Falling through life he eventually fell into darkness. Self-abuse and avoiding responsibility can only last for so long, no matter who you are. As fate intervened Dan found himself literally under the water line, staring at death, and deciding death was a better offer. It was at this, his lowest moment that he experienced what could only be called a miracle. He met himself anew, with powerful purpose, and rose a changed man. Listen intently to his story. You will be moved. Let’s Etch The Edges.

Emerging excellence from the Caribbean, powerful positivity in community, parents rooted in poverty, but with love and community leaving poverty behind, building a foundation to push for the dream of America in New York, to a school with an eighty percent graduation failure rate, but that failure pushed back and locked out by the strength, power, the love of community, to drive forward towards excellence, a hundred and four human lights of brilliance that propelled Wade to success, to the full realization of America. This, is the way. This is who Wade Anthony is. A powerful story of American excellence indeed. A story that he wants to leverage to lead Dacula forward, preserving what is best in this thriving inclusive community, maintaining its standards as well as its affordability, for all families that seek to make Dacula their home.

On this episode of Etch The Edges Dave Mibrandt shares with us how he leans deep into discomfort to have the hard conversations. He does this for his students and models the kind of behavior we strongly support at the Edge. As we all know the last few years have torn our country apart, friends against friends, families against families. it is truly worth taking the time to listen to how Dave engages in a Brave Space and does what he can to bring people together. It’s a lesson from which we all must learn, if we are to close our divides in all the ways that matter. This is the work. Listen as we Etch The Edges with Dave.